Avant Garde Demi-Bold and Book Condensed. I think. I’m not sure about that capital ‘G’ though.

Other than the type, I think I like it.

More to come.

Hey, I didn’t say it was good.

I guess what I find so fascinating about it is: When did MTV ever condone being unpopular? Between the Spring Break programming and drunk girls crying on The Real World, it was an odd change of pace, but one that reminded me of the attitude MTV used to have, in the ’80s, before they became shameless culture-mongers. Still, it’s important not to ignore that this guy actually is attractive, and dressed fashionably, and — at least at my school — probably would have been popular. I guess it would have turned too many viewers off to have presented him as acne-ridden, overweight, without any sense of style, and listening to black metal?

Something I forgot to mention last time is that this was part of a series of commercials, if I remember correctly, that played on the “V” in “MTV,” although I forget the titles of the other installments.

Thanks to La fille des montagnes (“The girl mountain”?) for sending me the video.

Do you remember that?, where the kid is walking past the lockers in high school, and he has those big can headphones on, and all the jocks or whatever are sneering at him, and he just smiles contentedly and turns up his music?

I think it may have been an MTV2 campaign specifically. Anyway. I remember that.

Holy crap I can’t sleep.

Mark Ryden

WFMU DJ re-packages Britney Spears CD as obscure German electronica; it gets an enthusiastic response.

What.cd begins developing from the ground up a new torrent tracker source meant to replace the long-defunct, poorly-documented TBSource: Project Gazelle.

Loads of rare Andy Kaufman clips

The Arecibo Message
The Arecibo Reply

mcbess

Yvonne Fehling und Jennie Peiz

Nevertheless, Slashdot, Ain’t It Cool News, and doubtless thousands of other blogs are blowing up about it, and nobody’s asking any questions. Just fawning, ejaculatory cheerings-on.

The first thing you notice is how POORLY the page is designed. You even see a <meta name=“author” content=“John Stotler” /> in the source, that the domain is hosted at GoDaddy, and is registered through a privacy proxy. Okay, fine, so these people have hired an amateur designer. It’s possible.

But the announcement just resembles too closely every MST3K fan’s wet dream. They’re an easy target for a prank like this. They’ve been chanting Joel’s name continually for over ten years now, begging for him to come back. Pulling one over on people demonstrating such obnoxious behavior would be funny. What if it even made it on Slashdot? Or Wikipedia???

Besides the fact that it would be weird for all five of these people to be simultaneously inspired to beat that dead horse, Joel left the show because he wanted to distance himself from it. In a press release from 1993 he said,

It’s time for me to hang up my red jump suit and move behind the camera. Besides, there’s an old show business adage I once heard Adam West say: “Stay in the same costume and before you know it, you end up signing pictures at an R.V. show.” Maybe it was Clayton Moore, now that I think of it.

I want to become a behind-the-camera guy. I want to get on to the NEXT weird show. I want to be an idea man.

The new site itself is ugly, yes, but more than that, it’s very un-Joel-like through and through. Joel’s a smart, creative, funny guy. Would he really put his name behind such a stale, meaningless name as “Cinematic Titanic”? With this logo?:

Would he really say, “Our first release is at this time a total secret, however – I’m willing to say it makes ‘Manos the Hands of Fate’ look like ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’ in a car wreck with ‘Eegah!’”? These are the words of a fan, naming his favorite episodes, not the words of a guy who wanted to move on with his life, fourteen years ago.

The site also reads, “I’ve just been interviewed by Lucasfilm online, in anticipation of Cinematic Titanic’s first live show and world premiere in San Francisco in December.” Lucasfilm online? Why haven’t they been talking about this? Wouldn’t an exclusive, rare interview with Joel Hodgson about his new project be something you might want to mention? Where in San Francisco is this premier? Why haven’t I gotten a confirmation email for signing up for the mailing list?

These things are all The Colbert Report is good for.